Hayden Rush defied his isolation and a demanding travel schedule to claim a bronze medal at the South Island secondary school athletics championships.

The Kaikoura High School student worked his way through a series of qualifying events in Christchurch over the past three weeks, earning the right to represent his school amid the Mainland’s best on Saturday and Sunday.

It has literally been a long, winding road for the highly-promising athlete, beginning with the Canterbury Country Schools champs on Tuesday, March 6, followed by the Canterbury All Schools champs a week later, then the prelims and finals of the Canterbury championships, on Tuesday and Saturday, March 20 and 24. Then he headed even further south, taking on the Mainland’s best at Aorangi Park, Timaru. 

Rush, whose speciality is the under-15 javelin, was unbeaten in the three qualifying events, but had to bow to a couple of superior performers in Timaru. He threw the 700gm missile 38.72m, the winner hurling it out to 41.87m.

Kaikoura High School principal John Tait said it was a credit to Rush, and fellow KHS athlete Annalise Graham, who competed in the under-16 400m at the SI champs, that they had made it so far.

“City kids live in an environment where you have lots of regular competition and specialised coaching on a regular basis … our kids that are serious about the sport do get coached, but the squad coaching that goes on in the cities is different again. Now [the Kaikoura athletes] are competing against the best of the best and that is awesome.” 

“Hayden is a very talented all round athlete. His problem will be what he limits himself to … if he had decided to go into other events he would have done very well too. He’s obviously very special in the javelin.”